The Christian Century

I always feel like using the mom card highlights some sort of gender defect. My husband was a work-at-home dad for three years, and he has been just as involved in the diaper changing, sick days and parent/teacher meetings as I have. But I always have a feeling that when a guy uses the parent card, people think, What a great dad. But when women use it, people think, What an inept worker.

Throughout this political season, the Bible has been used in our discourse. Should this be the case? When is the Bible helpful and when is it harmful in the public square?

Leaders in mainline denominational churches crave creativity, vision and success. We like to learn from other disciplines. But is Steve Jobs the best person to teach us?

I started in the pastorate in my mid-twenties. I was short and good-natured, and I received awkward comments quite a bit. I don’t as much any longer. I got better with reaction time and gained some tools to deflect the comments.

This is the third and final post in a series of interview questions. Montreat Conference Center has an Institute for Church Leadership. Since I will be preaching at their "Leading With Bold Imagination" Conference that is coming up, they asked me a few questions. If you'd like to read the whole interview, here is part one and part two. And if you have a chance to attend the conference, I would love to see you there. Montreat's setting can feed the soul.

Montreat's Institute for Church Leadership is holding a Leading with Bold Imagination Conference. I'm the conference preacher, so they asked me a few questions.

Most people who serve as church leaders realize what an important time it is in our religious landscape. Because of demographic, generational, technological and economic shifts, we realize that many churches are coming to the end of their seasons. In this important moment, we will need leaders who can experiment, create, test and plant.

I hear that bivocational ministry will be the reality for pastors entering the ministry. Our economic model is breaking down. A church with 50 households can no longer support one pastor. Even when a minister is willing to live frugally, the cost of education and medical benefits keeps getting higher. So, many people jump to bivocational ministry as the answer.

We’re not in the sort of culture where “my dad died over a year ago” is an excuse. But when I speak to other people who have lost loved ones, they say it takes two to three years before the wounds heal. I wonder why there is such a disconnect between our personal experience and our expectation of others.

In our corner of the economy, excellent pastors got fired and many took wage and benefit cuts. In some cases, the congregations didn’t realize that their decrease in membership was a national trend that had a lot to do with shifting demographics.